


Hatetakers

by Maximusmax



Category: No Fandom
Genre: Gen, Horror, Mild Gore, Original Character(s), Original Universe, Violence
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-26
Updated: 2019-11-26
Packaged: 2020-02-04 10:21:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,815
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18602563
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Maximusmax/pseuds/Maximusmax
Summary: Things go bump. Things that belong in the shadows. We make sure they stay 'under the bed'. And if some people die. Well it happens. After monsters only really care for their own kind and the broken😈





	1. SwampMaiden

Arkansas-Louisiana Border

March 1994

 

      Swamps, in general, are creepy. A small misstep and you have 3 inches of fangs in your leg or neck pumping in poison that is so lethal even a drop is enough to kill a grown man. Another can send you sinking into a sinkhole with no known depth. Constant animal sounds whose owners could end you with relative ease. Not to mention the prehistoric relics swimming and crawling throughout the whole place. It gets even worse at night. All that danger and dread amplified by man’s instinctive fear of the dark.

 

    And it doesn't get much worse than a Louisiana Bayou at the witching hour.  The thickly grown together trees, the mist rolling over the water, as various wildlife echoed their calls in the night. Keep should know a few things about swamps he had been in quite a lot of them in his many years. He had bought an old rowing boat and had been paddling down the river for a good hour before he finally felt the familiar chill down his spine. The kinda chill even his fur-lined jacket couldn't keep out. The chill that warns all living things there is death or worse ahead. Something unnatural has happened.

 

  The noise of the swamp constantly played on in the background as Keep rowed ashore. The humidity of the swamp causing his unkempt brown hair to stick to his forehead. As he tied off the canoe to a nearby tree branch uncaring of the large snake wrapped around the branch next to him. Just as it was uncaring about Keep being close to it. He was completely at ease in this dark and - some would say - an evil place...too at ease, some would say. Keep began to traverse the muddy terrain with the skill of an expert woodsman, his thick leather boots leaving no prints behind and in the process showing the lightness of his steps. With senses honed from years of dealing with both natural and supernatural forces Keep felt the eyes on him as he strolled onto a small clearing. 

 

   Gathering nearby dry branches, leaves, and rocks Keep made himself a small fire pit in the center of the clearing. The seemingly young man then began placing the fuel in a practiced pile surrounded by rocks. Keep then took out an odd knife from the sheath on his thigh. The blade seemed to have animal teeth along the spine and a rock Keep struck the knife against caused sparks to fly, catching the pile alight. Sitting down on a nearby log Keep simply waited, knowing he would not have to wait long for his. After about an hour of waiting for an old Haitian man dressed in jeans and leather, vest seemed to appear from out of nowhere next to Keep. Unconcerned about the person appearing next to him Keep brought out a bottle of Moonshine from his inside coat pocket and took a quick swig of the clear liquid.

 

   “You know...it is rude to keep the elderly waiting, young man”, Keep said handing the bottle over with a smile. Smiling back the elderly man took the bottle from Keep.

 “Sorry Gramps - was making sure the new Dark stays in her territory”, the Haitian said with a thick accent, taking a swig. “She is newly made and full of blackness. Was thinking of calling her Swamp Maiden.’ As he spoke the forest went still. Just then a scream resounded through the night.   “OH GOD PLEASE SAVE ME IM SO-ARFSGE!” The rest of the word drowned by another scream this one not human then silence. The fool thought the Voodoo man with a smile. God knows better than to come to these kinds of places. Unconcerned with the scream the duo continued on, once the silence returned to the bayou.  
 

    “So what's the deal with the new Dark, oh Voodoo King of the Bayou? Is it a Prime or a single showing?” Keep asked, adding more branches to the fire. Taking a smoking pipe out of his pocket, the Haitian stuffed the pipe with tobacco from the tin and lit it with a piece of a burning twig from the fire. For a bit, he smoked before answering.

 

"From what I gather it is a single showing with the possibility of becoming a Prime”, he said, exhaling smoke from his nose. 

 “But you could have learned all this from Link why come all the way down to the Bayou?”, the Voodoo King asked looking at Keep.

 “I wanted to see an old friend. We haven't met in 15 years. Not since that giant cursed crocodile tried to eat its way through New Orleans”,  Keep said taking the shine back from King. Tapping his red leather boots, he added: “It made great boots though.” 

  As they were talking, a young couple appeared in the grove, their eyes as deranged as their appearance. The man was dressed in what used to be nice summer clothes. Same for the petite blonde woman next to him. Their clothes now stained with blood, mud and other dubious stains. The man was carrying a pistol and upon seeing Keep and King pointed it at them. 

 “Don't you freaking move bros .” His eyes wide and bloodshot ad the pistol shook in his hands. Seemingly unconcerned about the gun pointed at him, Keep continued his conversation with the Voodoo King.

  "They are the cause of the new Dark?”, Keep asked nodding at the couple.

  “More so the young man than the lady. He has a taste for exotic women, but doesn't like it to be a..happy memory for the women”, he said, taking a long pull of his pipe. 

 

   “Unfortunately for him and his accomplices, one of his victims had a relative who knew of the old ways. And so they called up her spirit and gave it form using the Bayou. For the past 3 days, she has been chasing them through the wetlands. I would say I have not enjoyed keeping them trapped here with my magic. But I am not a liar”, the Haitian said with a chuckle. Hearing this the couple had a look of horror as they recalled how the trees always seemed to move from the corner of their eyes. How nothing ever seems familiar. 

 

“You son of a bi-”, the young man started to say before he went ramrod straight, his eyes open wide. The woman next to him fell to the ground and started backing away from the young man. Her voice is low as she mumbled pleas and apologies. A pair of clawed arms made from vines and crawling with bugs burst from the man's chest his pistol falling from trembling hands. Not done yet the arm flexed up and sticking the clawed digits into his mouth a raspy voice seems to echo through the clearing. 

 

     “Bite down honey, you'll enjoy it soon.” And with that, the arms ripped the man's head apart as blood sprays from his neck dowsing the screaming girl. A couple of drops of blood landed on Keeps face who just brushed it off uncaring at the level of carnage he was all too used to. As the corpse fell away his murder came into a view. A small humanoid female like creature made of vines, mud, and insects stood there sharp fangs forming a pseudo grin on its face. Seeing the Swamp Maiden the girl ran screaming into the Bayou her only concern getting as far away from the monster as possible.

  All too familiar with such violence Keep and King watched as the Swamp Maiden sunk into the earth. “Well my buzz is ruined”, Keep said tucking the bottle back into his jacket. Handing a card to King Keep stood up to leave.

   
   “This is my hotel stop by when the feeding is done. I'll let you buy me lunch.” He said with a smile as he walked back to his boat. On his way back the young woman from before appeared in front of him gripping his jacket tight. “Please help me. I didnt...i didn't know what they were doing with those girls. It's not fair!”The girl pleaded her eyes wide from terror as she stared into Keeps.  But she froze at the emptiness in his eyes.

   
    “Yeah, it's definitely not fair innocent women were killed by your ‘friends’ either. You got to live the easy life while other people suffered for your silence. Nows to pay the piper." Keep said his hand locked on the girl's wrist like a vice. ‘And guess what? Your piper's here, and you're going to either die here or survive, all depending on what you do next. My job is cleaning this mess up, and not saving some silent Susan who couldn't be bothered to stop someone from dying." And with that, he released the girl's wrist sending her stumbling into the mud.  Crawling backward the blonde surged to her feet and ran, whether from Keep or the Maiden no one would know. As he watched her run Keep felt a presence behind him.

 Turning around Keep found the Swamp Maiden standing before him. For the longest time, they simply stared at each other. Keep felt no fear as he stared into the Swamp Maiden's face. Even as it raised its hand and brushed aside his forelocks revealing a strange scar on his forehead.

 “Guilty”, the Maiden said as she stared at Keep.

 “More than you'll ever know”, he replied his eye as empty as the Maiden's. Seeming to understand something - perhaps a sense of unspoken kinship - the Swamp Maiden vanished into the ground and Keep began the long travel back to...civilization. The shadows seemed to adorn his back like a shroud as he walked.

As always among the Dark.


	2. Bicorn Ranch

Somewhere in Colorado

July 1994

 

  The man awoke in a daze with a splitting headache as he slowly regained his senses - the first thing that hit him was the smell. It was a smell he was closely associated with: the smell of rot and a bad death. Against the queasiness in his gut, he opened his eyes that started adapting to the low light of the candles on the wall. As he began to take his surroundings in better, he immediately wished he hadn't.

  From what little light he had, he could tell that he was in some kind of cave. Covering the uneven walls was some kind black slime-like substance...like being inside the rotting intestines of a dying behemoth. The smell and sight proved stomach-curdling to the man as he dry-heaved for a bit. ‘Where am I?’, he thought to himself, as he leaned against the gunk-covered wall with the liquid seeping through his shirt. ‘The last thing I remember was hunting in my territory.’  
      
  Thinking back on his hunting trips brought a smile to his face, as gentle as a mother ́s. However, it didn't last long before a loud buzzer resounded in the tunnel.

   A trap door opened from the ceiling. Standing there for a minute the man was hopefully. ‘A way out?’, he thought hopefully as he walked under the trap door and tried to gauge the distance. Suddenly a shadowy mass appeared from the chute and landed on him, the weight sending him crashing to the ground. The dark mass was like sludge as it covered him from head to foot and its stench sickening him when out of nowhere he heard a raspy voice through the sludge in his ears.

 

 “Food for the sinners,'' the voice said. 

 

Then another voice joined and another and another. Soon the voices seemed to surround him and he felt hands and fingers start to claw at the mass covering him. Struggling with all his might, the man was finally able to break from the sludge and the things that surrounded him before making it to the wall. As he turned back to see the owners of the voices, he immediately doubled over upon the sight of them. The very sight of them made him sick.

 

 They were human. 

 

Or at least they might have been upon a time. There were at least ten of them. All of them had the look and smell of bloated corpses left to rot in the sun. Heedless of their own stench and disfigurement as well as those of their compatriots they consumed the sludge with reckless abandon. Body shaking with him crouched against the wall the man shut his eyes tight, hoping when he opened them again all this will have been a bad dream.

 

  The man assumed he had been here for around 3 days. Or as he counted 3 feedings for the Sinners as he learned they called themselves.  When they weren't feeding they were laying against the wall, their blackened and deformed bodies blending in with the dark ooze coating the walls. He had not yet tried to converse with any of the Sinners, as the memory of the first feeding was still fresh in his mind.

   

   He had gotten so thirsty that he had tried to drink the ooze coating the walls. He immediately threw up, when it reached his mouth. Not to mention his urge to hunt was growing stronger. He had never gone this long without a hunt. 

 

   But as the man consumed the ooze an odd feeling came upon him. He wanted, no, needed more of it. More than he ever needed a hunt. There was a strange addictive taste to the ooze that the man could not fight off. With each sip of the liquid, the addiction grew and grew. Until finally he was scraping off hand-sized pieces and consuming it. Then it happened.

 

   Five feeding layers his stomach was in pains. The wall ooze wasn't helping anymore and the Food for the Sinner was starting to smell divine to him. Unbeknownst to the man his body was starting to turn pale and sickly. The more he thought about the Food the more his mind became fixated on it. Until finally his mind was made up. At the next feeding, he would feed with the Sinners.

   

  At last the next Feeding came. And as per usual, the Sinners swarmed the mass of black sludge that seemed to pulsate as though it was breathing. Crawling forward slowly, the man carefully stole a piece of the sludge. Retreating back into the corner he began to eat the sludge with slow bites. Then faster and faster, until without him realizing the man was right there beside the Sinners eating the sludge.  To the man, the sludge was sweet ambrosia. It was so much sweeter than the tears of his prey after a good hunt. The taste was so mesmerizing that the man did not even notice the growths appearing on his body.

 

   The man, if you could call him that still, lost all track of time. The only things he cared about was the sludge and his memories of past hunts.  He began to realize the more he thought about those blood-soaked memories the sweeter the food. As he thought this he began to laugh. His sin of Wrath enhanced his Gluttony. Truly it was food for Sinners. And so the man was content. Until finally reckoning came.

 

  It happened one day the food didn't come. This caused a great howl to come from the Sinners lamenting the lack of their relief.  The food did not appear the next day either. Neither on the next day nor the next. Until the Sinners could feel only despair at their now empty existence without the sludge. Until at last the wall on the far right split in half and opened up.  But what drew the Sinner's attention the most in the middle of the new room was their precious sludge. They swarmed the sludge-like wasps on an intruder. 

 

  As they devoured the sludge they didn't notice that the floor was rising under them. The roof opened above them to reveal a vast blue sky and surrounding the group of Sinners crowding around the sludge was a sea of grass with thick tall metal fences closing the field in. They didn't even notice the sound of coughing coming towards them. Except for the one-man. He looked up and saw them.

 

   Misshapen monstrosities from a dark age. Their bodies an unholy mix of a panther and a cow. Their faces were like that of the ugliest man - all bulbous and uneven and two uneven-sized goat horns adorned the sides of their heads. Their sharp crooked teeth were bared in a grin as they eyed the Sinner feasting in front of them. But as they came upon the only thought that the once-notorious serial killer could muster was.

 

  “If only I could have heard more screams”. And then there was nothing but the sound of eating and broken laughter.


End file.
